M I D N I G H T

She sat quietly in the back seat of the car looking out the side window. The bus in front of them stopping at every block, causing them to stop too. The driver sighed in annoyance. She scutted over inbetween the two front seats and began to talk to her friend, Valerie, who sat on the passenger side. In front of the car was a white van that had some ad on the lower left corner of the double back doors. She happened to look through the back windows of the van and saw the reflection of the driver in the rearview mirror. He turned, as if he knew she was looking at him, toward the mirror so that he could see her. She gasped as she stared at the man. His eyes began to glow an irridesent lime as he smiled at her through the mirror. She knew who he was. She saw him in her dreams, nightmars, and daydreams, but never thought that he could be real. She couldn't take her eyes from his, that irridesent glow causing her eyes to stay glued to his. When the bus started off again he turned back to the road and drive off.
"Hey, what's wrong? Who is that?" Only when his eyes lost contact with hers had she heard her friend calling her name and talking to her.
"N-nothing is wrong." She continued to stare at the van as they drove along.
"Ya, tell me that again! Then what was that gasp for?"
"I-I thought that I...umm...knew that man, but I don't so nothing to worry about." Her friend looked at her strangly still not confinced that she was telling the truth. She sat back in and scooted back over to the side window, watching the van between her friend and the front side window. She lost the van when her friends' mother turned down a side street avoid the bus's constant stopping and going.

After several turns, the car came to a stop in front of an old Victorian house. The shudders needed to be repainted but other than that it was kept in immaculate condition. The porch light was on and there was a faint glow coming from the inside. They must have kept on the hall light for me, Rachael thought.

"OK, honey, you're home," Valerie's mom said turning to Rachael in the back seat.
Rachael took a look around to see if she saw the van but it was no where to be seen. "Thank you Mrs. Carpenter," she murmured.

I can't believe it, Rachel
thought. I can't believe it. There were
no other words to express her feelings. He was
back. He was alive. And he had found her again.
She walked up the curving staircase to
the second floor and on up the tiny flight into
the minisculine attic. Settling herself in front
of the garret window she stared down into the
street, not seeing the asphalt at which she
seemed to be rapty gazing. I can't believe
he's back, she thought agian.
Was she afraid? Was she happy? She
could not tell. Looking around, she siezed upon
the stand of a large mirror that had been
collecting dust in this attic since her mom had
decided it didn't look right in the living room
several years ago. Sliding the mirror around to
where she could see her own face, she studied her
eyes.
As she concentrated, they began to
glow an eerie blue, casting strange shadows
across the dusty objects around her. Then she
sighed, let the color fade out, and looked out
the window once more.

This part was donated by Dinarzaad

It was even worse when she was asleep.
His face kept swarming and floating above hers,
constantly nagging her, never letting her rest.
But had he ever? Even when he had been alive?
When the alarm finally did go off the
next morning, she felt as if she hadn't slept at
all. Her eyelids felt glued to her face. She
swallowed deeply and grimaced, trying to rid
herself of the aftertaste her mouth had adopted.

Time to go to school, time to face
another day. Time to avoid another scene. She
wondered if she would pass the same bus again...